Current portable computing devices tend to place diametrically opposed requirements on their batteries. Much of the time, such portable devices operate in a so-called “standby” or lower power mode in which they consume electric power at a highly reduced rate with the expectation that doing so will result in far longer runtimes for their batteries. Yet, between lengthy periods of operation in such a lower power mode, there are also shorter periods of time in which such portable devices operate in a so-called “turbo” or higher power mode in which they consume electric power at a highly elevated rate.
Usually, such higher power modes entail operating at least one processor circuit (often the “central” processor circuit, but could be a specialized graphics or other processor circuit) at a higher clock rate, with more processor core components active, and/or with other processing-related features active. Often, a component of an operating system and/or logic within the processor circuit itself determines when to switch between such lower and higher power modes. Also, the impetus to switch from a lower power mode to a higher power mode is often the detection of a type of processing and/or an amount of processing required. Such an impetus is frequently supplied by the start of a particular type of task (e.g., floating point or vector math, video compression or decompression, etc.).
In recent years, several new battery technologies have come to be put in wide use, each usually able to offer higher densities of storage of electric power than its predecessors. Thus, it has become increasingly feasible to produce physically small batteries of a shape and size that are highly desirable for use in portable computing devices that also store a considerable amount of electric power such that lengthy runtimes in a lower power mode are frequently provided.
However, achieving such high energy storage densities to enable such lengthy runtimes in a lower power mode has lead to the cells of which batteries are composed having a construction that has a reduced ability to provide high power output (specifically, electric power output at high current levels) for even short periods of time. Further, some newly developed cell technologies also intrinsically have a high energy storage density, yet low current output capability. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the embodiments described herein are needed.